Material Matters
Making innovation.
Material Matters at Emily Carr University fosters a community interested in 3D printing and rapid prototyping, design research, emergent technology, media, programming, materials design, and manufacturing research.
We explore ways that new technology can enhance and mobilize enterprise, especially in the area of prototyping and fabrication systems. In particular, materials and design research through 3D printing, is an area of focus as an emergent personal production platform, enabling artists and designers to be unconstrained by traditional models for cultural and commercial product development and production.
Our efforts in exploring new innovations in 3D print mediums and associated technologies are enhanced by faculty-led research partnerships, social forums for exchange, and context-driven research projects. Material Matters works as a catalyst of product, manufacturing, and creative design research, creating synergy among students and faculty, external partners in industry, NGOs, non-profit, and community groups.
Realized in 2015, inquiring always.
Material Matters became a formalized Research Centre at Emily Carr University in 2015. Over time it developed as a research Cluster and meeting point – an intersection of groups that catalyzes disciplines, students, and faculties within Emily Carr University of Art + Design. We work with external partners who may be industry-based, NGOs, non-profit, or community groups.
New technologies and modes of enterprise based on open, shared platforms for making are changing the notion of what it means to mobilize expertise – to develop and implement tacit knowledge in systems of fabrication. Exemplary of this is 3D printing and its presence as an emergent personal production platform. As 3D technology development continues, artists and designers will no longer be limited by constraints imposed by traditional models for cultural and commercial product development and production.
We are engaged in developing and evaluating new 3D print mediums and exploring innovative methodologies for design and production. This effort is augmented by faculty-led applied research partnerships, context driven research, and emergent social forums for exchange.